Many types of software tools exist that allow for the scheduling of meetings. For instance, many personal information manager programs provide calendaring functionality. Through this functionality, a user can create meetings on a calendar, invite other users to the meeting, and schedule time on the calendars of the other users for the meeting. Meeting invitees can accept, decline, or suggest a new time for the meeting.
While current software tools provide a great deal of functionality for scheduling meetings, these tools provide little if any functionality for managing activities that occur during the entire lifecycle of a meeting. The lifecycle of a meeting refers to the time prior to the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting. For instance, using current software tools, a user may create a meeting agenda prior to a meeting that identifies one or more topics for the meeting. During the meeting, one or more users may take notes on the meeting. After the meeting, one or more users may create a summary of the meeting. Current software tools provide little if any functionality for managing these activities.
Using current software tools, activities that occur during the lifecycle of a meeting are commonly performed independently by each of the meeting participants. This can result in significant duplication of effort by the meeting participants. For instance, two meeting participants may independently create an agenda or a summary for a meeting. Moreover, in order to collaborate on these activities, it is often necessary for the meeting participants to utilize electronic mail (“e-mail”) or another type of communication to transmit documents reflecting the meeting activities. For instance, a meeting participant may create a meeting agenda and e-mail the agenda to the other participants. The other participants may then modify the agenda and e-mail the modifications. This process can lead to large numbers of e-mail messages, to difficulty in incorporating the changes made by each participant, and even to confusion in identifying the most current version of a document. There is also currently no convenient way to store documents reflecting the activities occurring during the lifecycle of a meeting in a common location that is convenient for all meeting participants to access.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.